Argumentative and persuasive writing

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Room for Debate. He Said, She Said, I Say: A Researched Argument Essay. We are in the middle of our Second Annual Student Editorial Contest, when students practice writing short, evidence-based persuasive pieces similar to the editorials in The New York Times.

One skill that students often struggle with in persuasive writing is how to acknowledge opposing viewpoints. Earlier this week we published our lesson “I Don’t Think So: Writing Effective Counterarguments” to support teachers in teaching that important skill. With this Reader Idea, submitted by Danielle Harms, an assistant professor at George Mason University, we take that skill even further. Below, Ms. Harms explains how she uses The Times’s Room for Debate feature to teach her college students how to support their claims while bringing many relevant “voices” into conversation with one another.
He Said, She Said, I Say: A Researched Argument Essay. Each semester the research and writing courses I teach at George Mason University culminate in a major research essay.

Below are the directions. Click to access the .pdf version of these directions Overview What are the pressing questions that members of your field are researching and discussing?
Renee Zellweger and the Question of Aging - Room for Debate. Using Room for Debate to Teach Argumentative Writing and Discussion Skills. Photo All this week, we are featuring Great Ideas From Readers, lesson plans from teachers who teach with The Times.

If you have used The Times for teaching and learning and would like to see your idea in our blog, write in and tell us what you have done. Below, we share ideas from two teachers — Gerard Dawson from Hightstown High School and Justin Rex from Wayne State University — who use Room for Debate, the Times online feature that invites knowledgeable outside contributors to discuss news events and other timely issues, to teach argumentative writing and discussion skills in their classrooms. Teacher: Gerard Dawson Institution: Hightstown High School Grade Level of Students: Ninth to 12th grades Idea: Students wrote editorials inspired by The New York Times’s Room for Debate series and then formatted the final products to mimic the Room for Debate pages. Why We Chose It: Mr. What Mr. Recently, my students wrote editorials inspired by The New York Times’s Room for Debate series. What Dr.
Using an Op-Doc Video to Teach Argumentative Writing. Video Below we share an idea from Allison Marchetti, an English teacher at Trinity Episcopal School in Richmond, Va., who uses an Op-Doc video about the problem of Internet addiction among China’s youth to teach argumentative writing to her ninth graders.

This lesson is part of a larger unit of study on editorial and commentary writing. If you have another idea for teaching with The Times, please write in and tell us about it. Teacher: Allison Marchetti Institution and Grade Level: Trinity Episcopal School, ninth grade Idea: Students learned how authors support an argument using different types of evidence. Why We Chose It: Times Op-Docs — the editorial department’s forum for short, opinionated documentaries, produced with wide creative latitude and a range of artistic styles, covering current affairs, contemporary life and historical subjects — are an excellent source of material for teaching and learning.

What Ms. Note: Parts of this post were originally published on Ms. How to Use It 1.
Counterargument. When you write an academic essay, you make an argument: you propose a thesis and offer some reasoning, using evidence, that suggests why the thesis is true.

When you counter-argue, you consider a possible argument against your thesis or some aspect of your reasoning. This is a good way to test your ideas when drafting, while you still have time to revise them. And in the finished essay, it can be a persuasive and (in both senses of the word) disarming tactic. It allows you to anticipate doubts and pre-empt objections that a skeptical reader might have; it presents you as the kind of person who weighs alternatives before arguing for one, who confronts difficulties instead of sweeping them under the rug, who is more interested in discovering the truth than winning a point. Not every objection is worth entertaining, of course, and you shouldn't include one just to include one. The Turn Against The Turn Back. In-Class Writing Exercise Directions: Entering the Conversation. Below are the materials for an in-class writing exercise students in my 100 and 300 level composition classes complete as one of their first steps in the major research essay, which I call He Said, She Said, I Say: A Researched Argument.

I distribute and discuss these directions a week in advance and project them on the board while the students write. The students complete this exercise after we’ve reviewed the research essay directions and they’ve selected a research question. I distribute the directions for the writing exercise a week in advance. For the Project 3 researched argument essay students start by writing in response to a question that’s been posed on a New York Times series called “Room For Debate.”

In the series the editors pose a question and a variety of outside writers respond in a varied forum of short articles.
Renee Zellweger and the Question of Aging - Room for Debate.